Day 7: Family game day!

Day 6 New life!

December 6, 2011 will have a whole new meaning to the Nuzums from now on.  Who knew that as I sat with the kids this morning reading from a favorite Advent story book (Jotham's journey), that it would lead to our 5 year old asking me to pray with him to ask Jesus into his heart & life?  Well I suppose there is One who knew...the same one who knew our second born before he was formed in the womb (Jer 1:5), the same One who has numbered the hairs on his head & has a plan to give him hope and a future, the same One who we worship a praise for the salvation He gave us through the sacrifice of His only Son so that my son my have life.  Caleb, there are no words to describe how excited your dad and I are about your decision today! But I will never forget your words as we sat on the couch today..."Mom, I love Jesus too.  Can I ask him to come live in my heart?"  Then we talked, your brother grabbed his Bible and read Romans 10:9 to you, we knelt & prayed together...and your big brother started jumping up and down, screaming. :) When he calmed down we sang Happy Birthday to you.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  2 Cor 5:17    God has amazing plans for you, Caleb James!  We love you!

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.       ~3 John 1:4

Advent Day 5

Then Abraham looked up and saw a male sheep caught in a bush by its horns.  So He took the sheep and killed it.  He offered it as an offering to God, and his son was saved.  So Abraham named that place The Lord Provides.               ~Genesis 22:13-14

And Isaac carries the wood, like Jesus would one day carry the Cross, and the son lies down on the altar, they boy named laughter now still, and again God keeps His word and God provides a lamb.  Isn't that the gift we always need?  The promised Christmas Child who is the lamb sacrificed instead of us, and this Mount Moriah of Isaac's sacrifice, which would later be the building ground of God's temple, which would one day be in sight of Jesus' Cross, it's renamed the place the Lord Provides, Jehovah-Jireh.        ~Ann Voskamp

I knew he would be excited, but come on...

They wasted NO time coming up with things to do with their extra time.

First, the board game they've been begging to play since the day we unpacked the Christmas stuff:

We always enjoy playing this game several times during the Christmas season.  Some of the spaces include things like "It's a hot day in the desert. Put a towel around your head like a shepherd" or "You forgot to kiss your mom before you left. Go back to start and give your mom a kiss" (Caleb got that one this morning) It also provides opportunities for great family conversation on the "around the campfire" spaces.

 Then Joshua decided to set up a restaurant for lunch, complete with a menu and prices.  I wasn't sure how I felt about paying for my lunch.  But when I realized I wasn't going to have to prepare lunch for anyone, $0.35 seemed like a pretty good deal.  Joshua made lunch for everyone! 

...complete with hot chocolate for all.

Day 3 & 4 ~ Oh Christmas tree!

And the search is on!

Found it!....

 Christmas balls or goof-balls?

Once Ella found the ornaments, I didn't think they would ever get ON the tree... 



Advent Day 2

...And when Noah and his family and all the animals again walked the dry, sin-cleansed land, God arched his Father heart right across the sky, a rainbow to shoot an arrow of His forever love straight across all time.  Because the Father was sending his Son Jesus on another piece of wood, and we cling to that Son for dear life.                                                                        ~Ann Voskamp

Our advent activity today was to put up Christmas decorations outside, of which I have no pictures.  (Actually I did most of it, since the kids had friends over for our art class we started today...really fun!)  Anyway, I do have these pictures...

So this began as an experiment with a bottle, bowl, and straw, to see how much air their lungs held.  But somewhere along the way the bottle disappeared, the straws multiplied, and a battle was on.   Boys....  No rainbow after this flood, but I now have a very clean kitchen floor.  Rock on.

Advent countdown Day 1

So after a fun filled trip to the mountains to visit Grammie and Granddad for Thanksgiving, the kids could hardly wait to unpack the Christmas decorations as soon as we got home.  Their favorite item, by far...our Advent calendar.  The one with the little doors I usually fill with treats to be opened each day leading up to Christmas.  Unfortunately, it's getting a little difficult to put enough candy in those tiny doors for all of them, not to mention daily chocolate is extremely unhealthy (except for those 36 & older of course). So I had a new idea for this year.  I thought they were old enough to start understanding the meaning of Advent, to see the Christmas story unfold from the very beginning in the garden and weaving it's way through all of scripture until the birth of our Savior.  So we are going to be reading a daily advent devotional by Ann Voskamp.

Along with the daily reading I made some magnets to go along with each story that they will find in their advent calendar to place on their Jesse Tree they made for the fridge. 

Along with the magnet, they will find  a piece of paper with a fun activity that we will do each day. Hopefully this will help Mommy to slow down and enjoy the season as well. Today...Lunch in the living room (a true treat) and a Veggie Tale Christmas movie.  I wasn't sure how they would feel about the missing chocolate...but they didn't even mention it.  They were so excited!  Now off to get our schoolwork done, so we can enjoy lunch later...

September Birthday Wrap-up

Our sweet one year old...

On September 19th we celebrated Erin's 1st birthday.  Some things that come to mind when I think of our baby girl is cool, calm, collected, and carefree, which are all qualities that benefit her well, being child #4 :) For example, she is the first of our children to just lie in her bed and play when she wakes up.  Her telltale sign is usually a little jingle ball that we hear her playing with through the baby monitor.  She is the happiest just sitting in the floor playing with any of her three siblings. And of course, they are all smitten with her! Unfortunately, however, she can be a little too carefree.  For instance she could care less about walking...crawling...scooting...or even simply lifting her head up when she's on her tummy.  That's probably the one thing that does make her angry.  "If someone cannot lift my head up for me, do not put me on my tummy! Yes, pretty much all she does is sit...and smile.  She does have a physical therapy evaluation next week...to be continued.  In other health news, she has had two more seizures as a result of a fever since her first one back in July.  So it looks like we are looking at a future of febrile siezures until age 5 or 6 when they usually grow out of them.  It's obviously heartbreaking as a parent to watch her have them, and a little stressful having no idea when they are going to occur, but we are just thankful we have a Father who knows all and whom we can trust to care for and protect her.  A HUGE thanks to my dad for this amazing video he put together for Erin' first year.  She truly is our little "firework" in every way.

So blessed to have celebrated with our Elevation family as well as Grammie and Granddad!!

Next on the agenda was a butterfly party for our beautiful, fun-loving 3 year old,  Ella Grace! 

She has grown up so much in the past year!  She loves anything pink or purple, and anything with princesses or butterflies.  One moment she's playing with her baby dolls, and the next she's playing with cars with Caleb.  One day she's wrestling in the floor with her brothers, and the next day she looks at them, rolls her eyes, looks at me and says "crazy boys" & keeps walking.  She loves to help take care of her baby sister in every possible way, Caleb is her play time companion & blankie buddy, and whenever she is in need of tender loving care, Joshua is her go-to guy.

Sweet friends...

Birthday girls...

Birthday date with Daddy...

"All done!"